Genspect advisor Aaron Kimberly on the Unspeakable podcast

Written by a Genspect parent

In this recently released episode of Meghan Daum’s Unspeakable podcast, When queer theory meets medical practice, Genspect advisor Aaron Kimberly reflects on his own experience of dysphoria that led him to transition, his observations of young people gleaned through his work as a mental health nurse, queer theory, politics, and the lack of scientific curiosity around the explosion of teens and young adults suddenly identifying as transgender. Below are a few highlights from this interesting conversation.

“Some of these youth that we were seeing are really complex, they have autism diagnosis or ADHD or trauma backgrounds. It was weighing on my conscience, it did not feel right for me to just rubber stamp them and move them on to permanent medical alterations to their body. I wanted to get to know them. But then the accusations came, that I was gatekeeping clients, which in the political world of the affirmative model, that’s like a sin against the trans community.”

“We were seeing some very lonely kids who struggled to fit into a peer group…you learn these neo-pronouns and you say x, y, and zed, and you get to fit and be a part of this social group. For somebody who struggles socially and has trouble picking up on the complexities of and nuances of social cues and are very lonely as teenagers when your developmental task is to fit into a peer group, I have no doubt that some of these kids were saying to themselves, ‘I can learn these basic sets of principles and words and behaviors and fit into a peer group for the very first time.'”

“The whole queer theory project is to create this kind of smoke and mirrors show in order to blur the boundaries around what it means to be gay or lesbian, male or female, so that we can no longer be delineated as a clear group of people. It’s meant to be destabilizing and to confuse categories. There are only two categories, the oppressors and the oppressed. The only way the oppressed can escape oppression is to constantly blur boundaries. These kids are picking up queer theory not understanding where it comes from or what it’s original purpose was.”

“I think we’ve made a huge mistake in turning this into a queer theory movement rather than a science-based understanding of gender dysphoria.”

Listen to the whole conversation here.